The National Gallery opens to the public with a rare sighting of richness and quality Like the rest of us I’ve spent the last year or so missing the arts and the ability to experience them in the flesh. I spend hours on end lamenting my previous speedy appreciation of gallery visits, cinema screenings and just
Easy Indian Cookbook by Manju Malhi During lockdown everyone has found a different way to stay sane and keep busy. If you’re a writer like me there really has been no excuse to not get on with it. Except I’ve found that quite hard. House unusually full and busy, no ‘quiet’ moment in the day,
The Restaurant A History of Eating Out by William Sitwell Lockdown is a time for dreaming, dreaming of things past and dreaming of things to come. The world of restaurant dining seems somewhat incongruous to us at the moment in the middle of a global crisis the likes of which we have never encountered
A view of Andalusian Treasures by Sea With an eye on trying to try to reduce one’s carbon footprint it seems sensible to look at alternatives to flying. But here’s the dilemma, I enjoy covering a lot of ground on holiday; museums, beaches, good food and scenery as well as some history of the
The Gunton Arms Cromer Road Thorpe Market Norfolk NR11 8TZ Tel: 01263 832010 We dined in the ‘Elk Room’. Its provenance, a 10,000-year-old elk’s head above the fireplace, and what a fireplace. It’s where the meat is cooked over an open wood fire. Like a civilised medieval banqueting hall where you don’t have to eat
Cranmer’s Garden House Fakenham Norfolk NR21 9HY Where better to head off to as the autumn draws in than a comforting country cottage in Norfolk. We decided to have a couple of days R and R over half term in an extremely well appointed 3 bed bungalow with a roomy kitchen diner, 2 doubles (one
Barbados It seemed too good to be true, but I was really off to a Rum and Food festival on the idyllic Island of Barbados for a whole week. In a little over eight hours I was in Bridgetown, the warm capital of Barbados and not much later ensconced in the beach front luxury of
Norway and the Arctic Circle With Fred Olsen This was to be my first cruise, I have never managed a full steam ahead heading for the horizon cruise. Yes this was to be the real deal, setting off from Liverpool and heading north up to the Arctic Circle via Norway and calling in on The
Watergate Bay Hotel Watergate Bay Cornwall TR8 4AA Tel: 01637 860543 “Cornwall” I said “In a couple of hours”. That was the beginning of a conversation that became a bet (that I won) and ended just outside Newquay on Cornwall’s beautifully rugged north coast. Let me explain, M and myself often travel to South
Caen France The echo chamber of today’s society loves a sound bite. This year it’s been “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind” and of course it should be rightly celebrated as one of if not the greatest achievement of man thus far. But what it boils down to is travel, the
Views of Lucerne Switzerland The beautiful city of Lucerne, city of light sits in the middle of Switzerland, where the River Reuss drains the eponymous lake. It’s obvious it has natural beauty and class but what else might the discerning traveller be interested in? Maybe the oldest wooden covered bridge in Europe dating from
Arnhem: 75 Years On 75 years ago this September the skies of Arnhem were peppered with thousands of parachutists and hundreds of gliders. Forming the largest airborne force the world had ever seen. Under the instructions of Field Marshal Montgomery the Airborne region as it is now known consisted of four principle areas; Arnhem, Ede,
The Steam Dreams Rail Company Tel: 01483 209888 Imagine sitting in a comfortable armchair, a table set for dinner in front of you, an attentive waiter at your beck and call, chilled champagne for a summer evening and a moving backdrop, why not? Wait, what was that? A moving backdrop, surely Neil you were describing one
Belarus With five international borders the land locked east European Republic of Belarus has had its fair share of consequential history. It declared independence from the disintegrating Soviet Union in 1991, concluding seven decades of turmoil. After the 1917 Russian revolution Belarus became a founding constituent republic of the Soviet Union. The Polish-Soviet war
Somabay Red Sea Egypt Hurghada airport is only 45 minutes drive away from Somabay Resort, which means including the flight you can be checked into your luxury Red Sea view room within six hours of taking off from the UK. Placed at the tip of an isthmus surrounded on three sides by alluringly blue